Early Plants Linked to Ancient Ice Ages

Early Plants Linked to Ancient Ice Ages

The first plants to appear on earth 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages by causing a reduction in atmospheric carbon, British researchers said. Scientists say the first plants to grow on land, the ancestors of mosses that grow today, had a dramatic impact on the global carbon cycle and the world’s climate, according to a University of Exeter release.

Researchers said the plants extracted minerals such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron from rocks in order to grow, causing chemical weathering of the Earth’s surface that pulled carbon from the atmosphere and led to a cooling of global temperatures of around 9 degrees Fahrenheit.